Child Poverty Bill

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and wish to make a point which goes to the heart of her concern. As I understand the point she was making, nutrition is what matters most early in a pregnancy. One of the most interesting things about the way in which the tax credits and benefits system has been going is that, because of its emphasis on child poverty, there is now developing—I shall try to draw this out in a later amendment—quite a distortion of the way in which the poor are supported. If you are a lone parent with one child, according to the House of Commons Library, you are now running at only 4 per cent from the minimum poverty line. If you are a single woman—a potential mother or a pregnant individual—your income distance is now 22 per cent. What the noble Baroness is saying, as I understand it—I have great sympathy because we have been trying to make this point all the way through the debate on the causes of poverty—is that poverty and an inadequate diet around the period of conception or shortly afterwards have a causative effect on poor outcomes later. It could be argued that the way in which we are distorting our benefits system for the poor to help child poverty has a direct impact on such poor outcomes.